Today's Liberal News

The Nihilism of MAGA World

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Joe Biden’s “Soul of the Nation” address got at a cold and disquieting truth: The MAGA movement cannot be placated, reasoned with, or politically accommodated in any way.

The Moon Will Have to Wait

By now, the spaceship should have been on its way to the moon. By now, NASA had hoped, the gumdrop-shaped capsule—designed to carry astronauts someday—would be sending all kinds of data back home, showing engineers how its first journey to space was going.But the capsule is still here, sitting atop a giant rocket that has so far refused to leave Earth.

The Question of Defunding Police

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Last week I asked readers for their thoughts on Joe Biden’s plan to hire 100,000 additional police officers and his explicit rejection of defunding the police.

Rogue One Was a Minor Miracle

Rogue One sets itself apart from other Star Wars films seconds after it starts. There is no opening crawl, no wall of yellow font drifting into a star field. The franchise logo doesn’t appear, and the John Williams fanfare doesn’t kick in. There is merely the title card informing viewers that it’s “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”—and then bam: The action begins.

A Ruling Untethered to the Law

One of the most dispiriting aspects of the decision yesterday by Federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon—which granted former President Donald Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review the evidence seized from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI—is that it undermines the work of all the other judges who have tried to adhere to their oath to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and … faithfully and impartia

RIP Barbara Ehrenreich: Exposed Inequality in “Nickel and Dimed,” Opposed Health-Industrial Complex

We remember the author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich, who has died at the age of 81 after a career exposing inequality and the struggles of regular people in the United States. In a brief interview, Democracy Now! co-host Juan González recalls working with Ehrenreich as part of the Young Lords and says she was instrumental for the movement against the American health-industrial complex.

Chile Goes Back to the Drawing Board After Voters Overwhelmingly Reject New Progressive Constitution

Voters in Chile have rejected a new constitution that would have replaced the country’s Pinochet-era constitution and expanded rights for Indigenous peoples and abortion seekers, guaranteed universal healthcare and addressed the climate crisis. The new charter was rejected with 62% voting “no,” and President Gabriel Boric has now vowed to continue efforts to rewrite the charter.

George Monbiot: New U.K. PM Liz Truss Has “Extreme Neoliberal” Anti-Labor, Anti-Environment Record

The United Kingdom’s Conservative Party has voted for Liz Truss to become its new leader, replacing Boris Johnson and making her Britain’s next prime minister. Truss served as foreign secretary under Johnson and has a record of “extreme neoliberal policies,” says British journalist George Monbiot. These include supporting tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulating the fossil fuel industry and refusing to regulate agricultural pollution.

Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton warned that Donald Trump was a fool who could be baited with a tweet. This past Thursday night, in Philadelphia, Joe Biden upped the ante by asking, in effect: What idiot thing might the former president do if baited with a whole speech? On Saturday night, the world got its answer.For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump.

Historian of Radical Right: Biden Is Correct, Trump Poses Existential Threat to Future of Democracy

In a primetime address Thursday, President Biden warned Donald Trump and his radical supporters are threatening the foundations of the republic. Biden said, “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” and that MAGA Republicans present a “clear and present danger to our democracy,” referring to Trump’s campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again.

Ukraine Update: Russia wants to talk peace again because it is losing

  • by

Short update today because it’s a holiday and I still haven’t recovered from yesterday’s monster update. If you haven’t seen it, it’s still a current representation of public information on the ground situation in Ukraine. In short, I went out on a (short) limb to declare Russia’s offensive culmination, with a clear shift to defensive ops as their war machine runs out of steam.

What is found when things are lost: Reflections on a father

No one ever tells you when you’re a kid, hey, your parents are going to get old in front of you one day (if you’re lucky) and it’s going to be really hard to watch. No one primes you or prepares you well in advance for dealing with a parent who has cancer or dementia. 

It’s a hard-knock school that you are admitted to without ever applying.

This past week I spent some time traveling and ended up in Florida where my father lives.

I found my people at Netroots (and Daily Kos) fighting the climate crisis

I can’t help but keep thinking about how much different my life was a year ago as one of the only named storms of this hurricane season begins to form in the Atlantic right now. Exactly a year to the day ago, I was sweating my ass off making sandwiches with World Central Kitchen before switching to their plating team where I worked some of the hardest days I’ve ever experienced.

Federal court rulings finally give wild orcas a place at the table for salmon harvests

One of the reasons the Southern Resident killer whale population in the Pacific Northwest is endangered is that its primary dietary staple—Chinook salmon—happens to be prized food for humans, too. And humans are bad at sharing: While Northwest salmon harvests are carefully regulated, divvied up between commercial, tribal, and sport fishermen, the federal authorities in charge of those decisions leave no place at the table for the orcas whose survival depends on the salmon.